Monday, August 18, 2014

Deb is making hers for a sweet little girl. These colours are just perfect.

Katherine is colours are just wonderful, the orange setting triangles just set off the blue so well.

Wendy used almost the opposite to Katherine. I loved these rings.

Donna did a great job with these very pretty fabrics.

Next to Donna was Helen. I love the way Helen uses colours and fabrics, the two backgrounds are perfect. I have been quilting for Helen for a couple of years now and am always amazed at her selections.

Gals fabrics are very warm and cozy feeling. The chocolate was a great match for them.

Margot couldn't come to class until later in the morning, but she certainly didn't waste time and did a wonderful job catching up and learning what we had already covered. Margot left with a ring complete and smile on her face. Glad you could make it to class, Margot

Catherine with a C ( there were 2 in class) did a great job in class. Catherines bobbin ran out halfway through the last seam at the very end of class, don't you just hate that. But her points meet where they are supposed to, just like all the girls blocks.

During class we learnt that not all 1/4" feet for machines sew a true 1/4", and that not all Jelly Rolls strips start at 2.5" either. For this class it is important to start with the correct size strip sets. A couple of the strips were narrower than needed so we used the practice curves cut from some pieces I gave the ladies at the start.

We talked about the seam not necessarily needed to be 1/4" but more importantly having the units been sewn together measuring accurately after the seam is sewn. That is when sewing 4 strips that are 2.5' wide together the final unit should measure 8.5" across. Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame has a great tutorial in how to get your units to finish at the size they should HERE. And HERE is a link to create an accurate seam guide for any machine. I hope you find these helpful.

Thank you ladies for a great class on a very wet Saturday morning. I am waiting to see how your quilts turn out and to see you again in a class with me.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

This is a long term piecing project that I had fun with. Its called Snowballs and Snowmen, well because they are snowball blocks and I used Snowmen Gatherings fabric from Primitive Gatherings. ﻿

This fabric was all the blues and tans through to white. It has cute snowmen and snowflakes and wintery stuff that I don't get where I live in Australia. Insert sad face here.

I threw in the reds to add a bit of pop. I just love this angle and the red scattered through out. This again is a largish quilt top at 74" x 90". Snowballs and Snowmen is now sitting in the "to be quilted" pile.

These beautiful wattle trees are in full flower all over the place in my streets. This was a couple of weeks ago and the trees are now weighed down with the blooms and the bees.

Another top I have finished of late is this Metro Hoops by Sew Kind of Wonderful. I have it quilted but sorry no photo at the moment. I am teaching this quilt on Saturday at The Patchwork Angel. I just love this one too. The colours are so bright and fresh.

I wanted to make another Metro Hoops but was stuck for inspiration. So off I went to the shops and found this display at Bed Bath and Table. Shop displays are always a good source of colour inspiration.

And here are the colours I chose to use. This top is coming along nicely. With this Metro Hoops I have used one fabric for the Hoops instead of strip sets. Its looking good.

A few weeks ago, Jenny of Sew So Crazy and I went to a trunk show put on by A Piece of Cloth. I cam home with this quilt top, like I need another quilt top or another quilt with 60 degree pieces in it.

But I could not help myself. It is from around the 1940's.

The top is pieced from hexagons, diamonds and jewel shapes

The colours are vibrant and cute. The yellow background is very sunny and sweet.

look at this fun print

There is hand and machine piecing throughout the top. And as this picture will also show you is that some of that piecing is not as accurate as it could be. With this is mind I am working through whether to leave it as is and quilt it or undo some of the machine piecing and work out some of the excess fabric. I know I can't unpick the hand stitching, that has to stay.

So that is about all that has been happening here with my quilting. We have lots going on with the kids activities over the next few weeks, why does everything seem to happen in a short time frame with sports and school stuff.

Monday, August 4, 2014

These cool Chevrons belong to Barb. Barb talked about wanting the chevrons to continue out into the borders and then the rest was up to me.

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This quilt is huge. The outer borders alone are 14" wide.

These are all the threads I used along the way.

The pictures have a blue tinge to them from the afternoon light.

I tried to edit this one to show the quilting a little better, but I don't think I should play around with them again....

this is the original. The top and bottom borders have a row of chevrons created with quilting, the same as the coloured chevrons and then straight lines out to the edge.

The colours used are just lovely. The fabric is from a Moda range called Bluebird Park by Kate & Birdie Paper Co.

Another photo I played with. Straight line along the Chevrons...

and curls in the backgrounds. The same quilting that is in the chevrons and background are extended out into the side borders. The chevrons are made with Half Square Triangles. Simple but effective.

Here is the back showing some of the quilting.

There was a lot of marking done before I could even start the quilting, but so worth it.

The grey is looking mauve in this picture. The colours are just lovely and fresh against the white background.

I loved this quilt and so did Barb. She is very happy with how it has turned out. So happy that Barb called me several hours after picking it up to let me know that the quilt was just perfect on the bed at home.

The past week I also got to quilt a Swoon quilt for Wendy. I love this quilt, along with many many other quilters in the world.

Set up ready to go

Wendy asked for Baptist Fans, they are just the perfect thing for this quilt, just like the original

Photos again taken in the backyard in the afternoon, so the light is not perfect

Wendy used Scrumptious by Bonnie and Camille. Love this fabric as well.

It was very hard to hand these two quilts back to their owners, sometimes my job is not fun.

And I have been doing some hand piecing at night, trying to get some more quilts finished to quilt top stage. I still have more pieces to put together, but it does go together quickly, this part anyway.